Video released by spacecraft maker Area, X commemorating its Dragon pill, which on May 25, 2012, became the first business spacecraft to dock with the International Spaceport Station. Space, X (A Britannica Publishing Partner), (born June 28, 1971, Pretoria, South Africa), South African-born American entrepreneur who cofounded the electronic-payment firm Pay, Pal and formed Space, X, maker of launch lorries and spacecraft. He was also one of the first substantial financiers in, in addition to chief executive officer of, the electric cars and truck producer Tesla. Leading Concerns, Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971. Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment firm Pay, Friend and established the spacecraft company Area, X.

Elon Musk founded Space, X, a business that makes rockets and spacecraft. He ended up being the president and a major funder of Tesla, which makes electrical automobiles. Musk was born to a South African daddy and a Canadian mom. He showed an early skill for computers and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he produced a computer game and sold it to a computer magazine. In 1988, after getting a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa because he was reluctant to support apartheid through required military service and since he looked for the greater economic chances readily available in the United States. Musk went to Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, and in 1992 he moved to the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, where he received bachelor's degrees in physics and economics in 1997.

In 1995 he founded Zip2, a business that offered maps and service directories to online papers. In 1999 Zip2 was bought by the computer system maker Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then established an online financial services company, X.com, which later on ended up being Pay, Friend, which concentrated on transferring cash online. The online auction e, Bay bought Pay, Friend in 2002 for $1. 5 billion. Musk was long convinced that for life to endure, mankind needs to end up being a multiplanet types. However, he was dissatisfied with the excellent expense of rocket launchers. In 2002 he established Space Expedition Technologies (Area, X) to make more cost effective rockets.

A third rocket, the Falcon Heavy (initially launched in 2018), was created to carry 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, nearly twice as much as its largest competitor, the Boeing Company's Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the expense. Area, X has actually revealed the successor to the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy: the Super Heavy, Starship system. The Super Heavy first stage would be capable of lifting 100,000 kg (220,000 pounds) to low Earth orbit. The payload would be the Starship, a spacecraft designed for providing quick transport in between cities in the world and developing bases on the Moon and Mars.

Dragon can carry as numerous as 7 astronauts, and it had a crewed flight bring astronauts Doug Hurley and Robert Behnken to the ISS in 2020. Musk looked for to Additional hints decrease the expense of spaceflight by developing a fully multiple-use rocket that might take off and go back to the pad it released from. Starting in 2012, Area, X's Insect rocket made several brief flights to evaluate such innovation. In addition to being CEO of Area, X, Musk was likewise primary designer in building the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Insect. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to special material. Subscribe Now Musk had actually long had an interest in the possibilities of electrical cars and trucks, and in 2004 he turned into one of the significant funders of Tesla Motors (later on renamed Tesla), an electric cars and truck company founded by entrepreneurs Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.